This is proper rural living, not what Mumsnet calls rural living (anywhere Ocado won't deliver in Surrey).
"Ken, who is in his 70s and lives off grid in a remote part of Lochaber, was injured when a log pile collapsed on him on Saturday. He had fallen ill while in his log cabin, a two-hour walk from the nearest road, on the edge of Rannoch Moor, by Loch Treig."
I wonder how much those gadgets costs? Sounds like a good idea for many people actually. Brian
About £200 for a non-floating one, the kind normally used on land.
They aren?t intended to be used in areas where ?normal? methods (mobile phone etc) work. In the UK, at least on land, people like hill walkers etc would be the expected users plus, of course, people like the chap in the article.
Every now and then you hear of the havoc caused due to one being set off in error, maliciously, or by some fluke- mainly maritime ones.
There are cheaper ones but if they communicate via satellites, you need a subscription and it?s not cheap.
Eg. SPOT Gen3 Satellite GPS Tracker
Tim
Oops, looks like I?m wrong about basic locator beacons. No subscription necessary for them.
If there is a phone network available and you know where the person is is there an app for a smart phone that will call someone if you do not move for 5 minutes. I cannot find one but would like one.
Google "lone worker protection"
But there isn't a perfect version for any system they all have faults one way or the other!..
Yes I thought it might be more than that. I was intrigued to learn that Apple have a fall detector in their watches, I wonder how reliable that is. One assumes you would not have it on if doing something like breaking up concrete or doing judo! Brian
But despite all this they still managed to lose a whole plane full of passengers did they not?
Still, I guess short usage patterns like distress signals should not cost much. Brian
There is a flaw in that plan. It would go off every time you left the thing on charge overnight! That I think is why such things get built into the watch. False alarms are not much good. Brian
I think you?ll find they?re a lot more sophisticated than simple impact sensors. They?ll be analysing movements (or lack of) after sudden accelerations to see if they fit the profile of a fall followed by immobility.
Tim
Brian Gaff \(Sofa 2\) snipped-for-privacy@bluey> Yes I thought it might be more than that.
Well that's easy to overcome in the firmware:
if <on_charge>
<suppress_alarm> = true else <suppress_alarm> = false
I think the neck worn dongles that the aged in laws wear during the day have fall detection. Donno how it works but an accelerometer and firmware looking for "freefall", big spike, followed by stationary for 10 seconds I can see being fairly reliable. Maybe push the stationary time out to a minute to cover it being accidentally dropped. A minute might seem a long time before raising the alarm but it's a damn sight better than the next day when a carer next calls round...
We used to work with such systems on two-way radio networks and I can tell you there isn't a perfect one at all most all have shortcomings!
The ones that rely on movement are invariably carried in the persons clothing like a jacket hi viz vest in hot weather that comes off so does the lone worker unit no movement well the person is still moving!
Ones that detect if someone is standing upright or has collapsed well put that with someone who tosses off the jacket overalls hi viz coat etc in hot weather that could land at any angle so thats not that reliable.
The only systems that do work so so well are ones that require an input from the user at periodic intervals as long as the user responds of course the user has now wandered off and left the unit behind !
So the security staff come looking and will find him bit of swearing and it happens very often!..
Posibly because such devices don't work under water.
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